Shortening your Technology Sales Cycle - Marketing to IT Managers online

As a Marketing Manager, your job is to increase sales of your hardware or software product.  To be successful, you have to reach – and influence – your key market, IT Managers.

Easier said than done.

Not only is this highly selective group of customers bombarded with sales calls on a daily basis by hundreds of vendors, they just do not have time to spend going over pages of mundane marketing material.

Yep, this market is a tough nut to crack.

They have a penchant for rejecting traditional vendor marketing material – because to them it’s just marketing fluff that truly doesn’t address their needs. So to be successful, you have to understand what they do, and know their pain points.

Then, you have to provide the antidote.

By following each of the steps we’ve laid out below, you can get both highly targeted traffic and better placement in the search engines.

Think it can’t be done?  Think again!

We’re sure you already have a basic understanding on what SEO is and the value it brings to your company – so we won’t waste your time with that.

But you probably didn’t know that by simply tweaking your website and creating landing pages specifically for your target demographic, you can reap the rewards that come with being top of mind and having powerful brand exposure.

Now that’s something to crow about!

Key on Keyword Research

Although this may be the simplest step, it’s a vital part of the SEO chain. Without proper keyword research, you’ll be on a long road to nowhere – missing out on highly targeted traffic from potential clients that are either ready to buy or looking for critical information (read: $$$).

To start your research, you need to have a thorough understanding of your clients’ world – but there’s much more to it than that.

You have to understand what causes them pain on a daily basis – and then you have to come up with the remedy.

Start by picking keywords or phrases that you, your clients and your competition use when talking about your product or service. Research your keywords by:

• -  Asking your clients: are they any keywords that they associate with you
• -  Going to your competitors’ websites and checking out theirs
• -  Using keyword tools such as this one from Google: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal (You don’t have to pick just one tool; you can use a variety of different sources)

Of course, you have to pick keywords that don’t have a lot of competition; if your company is smaller, it’s better to target less competitive keywords and phrases to begin with.

Master of Your Domain

One of the first areas the search engine spiders look at is your domain. If your domain URL matches users’ search queries, it’s a strong bet that your page will come up in higher in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS).

Let’s say your website is www.coolproduct.com. You’ll want to make sure that you can create some deep URLs targeted specifically for a certain keyword or phrase.

Let’s look at a specific example of what we’re talking about.

Let’s say your company sells backup storage software.  You would first create a page with the URL www.coolproduct.com/backup-storage-software.  By adding specific keywords in the URL, you’ll serve notice to the search engines that this webpage is very relevant for those search terms.

You can create multiple landing pages in your website for different keyword terms, such as data protection software, backup recovery, etc.

Content Matters

If your domain has specific keywords, don’t forget to repeat the keywords in the page text! Using the above example, you can create some content related to backup storage software.

Here’s a sample of what you might use:

Cool Product is a high-performance backup storage software solution that provides data protection and recovery on desktops and laptops. Our unique backup storage solution is easy to implement and can be managed remotely…

Remember to write for the reader, but do not forget to insert the keywords within the text or you’ll defeat the purpose.

However, make sure that you don’t repeat the keywords in a line over and over, as it would be considered text spam – which the Search Engines absolutely hate.

Link It Up

Linking is a very important factor in SEO tactics. You need to link a lot within your site to other pages on the same domain that have similar content. You can create a related links side-bar in each page with links that lead to your other optimized pages.

For example: you could create related links that lead to landing pages such as: Learn more about Backup Storage Software, Data Protection Terms and Definitions, Backup Storage Solution Case Studies

By linking within the website itself, you not guide potential clients and brand your site as a potential resource, but the search engines will love you as they will also view your site as a hub of information.

The search engines love information – so give them what they want, and you’ll reap the benefits!

Blog Away

Blogging is a great tool – not only for SEO, but also for branding.

You MUST have a blog on your website, and make regular contributions to it (meaning at least twice a week – and preferably more than that). Write a few posts related to the industry, your product or service, and answer client questions.

This strategy not only gives your website a face, but it will help strengthen your relationship with your clients.

In terms of SEO, blogging is a boon as the frequency of new content attracts the search engines’ attention. You should also link back to your website from your blog, touch base with your network of related industry bloggers and link with them.

If you don’t have a network, then you know what to do – start socializing online!  Your network will help you promote your company or product.  And the linkbacks are helpful to your ranking.

More Essential Tactics

The tactics that we discussed above are focused on helping you get better placement on the search engines for your technology product or service. However, there are other tactics that also make for a well-rounded online marketing plan:

•    - News And Press Releases
•    - Articles
•    - Whitepapers
•    - Email Marketing

For even greater success, don’t lump your clients under one umbrella! You may have two or three different types of markets, and you need to cater to each of them.

From resellers and their sales reps to different levels of management – from Systems Analysts to CIOs – you can break down your market strategy to target these niches and dominate your market online.